When Sun Microsystems shines the spotlight on its first systems based on UltraSPARC IV and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron this week, it's also slated to show off the new software engine optimized for the server processors, Solaris 10.
Sun partners beta-testing Solaris 10 say the enhanced operating system for the UltraSPARC IV, x86 and AMD platforms will usher in a new era of automated, utility-based computing for the data center "engine room."
The Solaris Zones feature, code-named Kevlar, allows customers to carve up, isolate and run multiple workloads on a single Solaris OS image. The integrated N1 code can then dynamically provision a variety of resources such as memory, I/O and storage to each software service or application workload running in a Zone, sources said.
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Key features of the OS: >> Fire Engine TCP/IP stack >> Integration of access control and Trusted Solaris >> Zettabyte File System | |
The new Zones feature makes it easier to sell servers because it enables server consolidation while delivering the benefits of distributed computing, the partner said. For instance, he said, a partner can granularly deploy a directory or other middleware service within two Solaris Zones on one or two boxes, rather than as a major deployment across 32 server units.
"The dynamic service provisioning and service management is the biggest part of what I can touch and feel," said one partner, noting that much of what was formerly known as N1 is in Solaris 10. "With [Solaris] 10, the OS can be partitioned into containers that operate independently but are still part of the framework, so they only have to license one copy. The opportunity for service providers is huge."
Solaris 10 also integrates new access-control features and Trusted Solaris code, a DTrace utility that monitors system thresholds, and a new Zettabyte File System. The ZFS offers enhanced management features such as self-tuning, self-healing and quality-of-service requirements for storage.
Solaris 10 will run on Sun's UltraSPARC IV, Intel's x86 and, for the first time, AMD's Opteron processor.
One Sun spokeswoman declined to comment until Sun's Solaris 10 announcement next week.
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